Austin FC fell to a 4-1 defeat against the LA Galaxy on Sunday afternoon at Dignity Health Sports Park.
Disaster nearly struck early for the Verde & Black when LA’s Kevin Cabral won a penalty kick, but Brad Stuver came to the team’s rescue just as he did in this fixture in 2021. Stuver dove to his left and saved Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez’s attempt from the spot in the 3rd minute, keeping the scoreline level.
ATXFC grew into the game from there, creating their best chance of the first half on 18 minutes when Maxi Urruti forced a solid stop from Galaxy goalkeeper Jonathan Bond.
Stuver came up big twice more in the opening minutes of the second half, making a pair of strong saves on Samuel Grandsir and Efrain Alvarez. Moments after the latter, Diego Fagundez fired in the opening goal off a clever pass from Owen Wolff, handing the Verde & Black the lead in the 53rd minute.
But the Galaxy fought back to equalize eight minutes later through Chicharito, and went ahead in the 64th minute when substitute Dejan Joveljic found the net from close range. Joveljic and Alvarez added goals in the closing moments to seal the result for LA.
THREE THINGS
- STUVER SAVES: Stuver has now saved a Javier Hernandez penalty kick attempt in each of Austin FC’s two all-time visits to Dignity Health Sports Park, and has saved 3 of 7 career penalty kicks faced in MLS.
- OWEN'S ASSIST: Making his third career and third consecutive start, Owen Wolff’s assist for Diego Fagundez’s goal was the first goal contribution of the 17-year-old’s nascent MLS career.
- INTERNATIONAL BREAK: The Verde & Black now have the longest gap between competitive matches of their 2022 season, with the team not playing another MLS game for 20 days. During the break, Austin FC will host Mexican side C.F. Pachuca for an international friendly at Q2 Stadium on Saturday, June 11.
UP NEXT
Austin FC will play its eighth away match and fifteenth match overall of the 2022 Major League Soccer regular season against CF Montréal on Saturday, June 18 at 6:30 p.m. CT/7:30 p.m. ET. The match will feature a regional TV broadcast in English language on KNVA (The CW Austin), as well as a livestream on AustinFC.com and the Austin FC app.
In Spanish language, the match will feature a livestream on UnivisionAustin.com and the Univision Austin app.
On radio, the match will be broadcast on KASE-FM (ALT 97.5) in English, as well as on TUDN Radio Austin (104.3-HD2, KLQB) in Spanish.
